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From M&S to a £4.4m Bombay food dream
Jonathan Prynn and Nick Goodway17 Jul 2008
It is a marriage made in Bollywood heaven. Shilpa Shetty's favourite Indian restaurant today joins forces with the takeaway Gordon Ramsay rates the best in London.
The £4.4 million deal sees Tiffinbites - best known for serving tens of thousands of curries to City bankers - taking over the Bombay Bicycle Club with 18 restaurants and kitchens in London's most desirable areas.
It is the latest coup for 40-year-old Tiffinbites founder Jamal Hirani who wants to build the business into Britain's first national Indian food brand to stand alongside Wagamama and Yo Sushi. He said today: "Bombay Bicycle is to Indian food what Domino's is to pizza. I want to open another 40 to 50 delivery sites."
The former Marks & Spencer lingerie buyer was inspired to start a restaurant business in 2003 after missing his mother's "unrivalled" home cooking. The family fled Idi Amin's Uganda in 1976.
He has four main London branches - at Canary Wharf, Moorgate, Liverpool Street and St Paul's - as well as smaller outlets in Selfridges and Harrods.
But his biggest coup has been persuading 300 of London's biggest employers, including Barclays, the BBC, Morgan Stanley, KPMG and O2, to hand him control of their staff canteens one day a week.
On Tiffin Wednesdays the company is now serving 250,000 lunches at around £5 a head with food prepared overnight in its north London kitchens.
The Manchester United fan claims to have reinvented the Indian meal by reducing the level of fat to bring it closer to typical Indian street food, and only selecting top ingredients. His executive chef still has to spend one day a month in the kitchen with Hirani's mother.
Last year the St Paul's branch hosted the after-show party for the first ever premiere of a Bollywood movie outside India - Metro, starring Shilpa Shetty. The Celebrity Big Brother winner is now a regular Tiffinbites customer.
Today's acquisition adds London's best known upmarket Indian takeaway brand to the company. The Bombay Bicycle Club received a huge boost last year when Tana Ramsay, wife of Gordon, revealed that the Battersea branch was the family's favourite takeaway.
The group is being sold by the restaurant company Clapham House, which also owns Gourmet Burger Kitchen, Tootsies and the Real Greek. It has restaurants in Balham, Hampstead and Holland Park.
